The question left no room for manoeuvre and Roberto Martínez, in fairness, responded in kind. “Will Everton step up or break up this season?” he was asked. “We have to achieve,” he replied. That process continues in the quarter-final of the Capital One Cup at Middlesbrough on Tuesday and Martínez has not disguised the importance of the occasion to the development of his young team.
Everton and achievement have never been acquainted in the League Cup. Twice beaten finalists, their record since losing to Chelsea in the 2008 semi-finals underlines why supporters are wary of the competition that offers the shortest route to silverware – Everton have managed five third-round exits and two defeats in round four.
For a grand old club without a trophy since 1995, the League Cup has become a burden rather than an opportunity.
“It feels significant,” admitted the Everton manager before departing for Teesside. “We haven’t been in a quarter-final of the League Cup since 2008 and, for a club this size, that’s rare.
“It is an important moment, but in a healthy way. As a player you want to be involved in those games. You know you can achieve some sort of history in our football club. That’s the mentality we are creating, we are embracing the situation.
“At this stage, it’s too early to be thinking or talking about a final but we have a bigger picture of creating a winning team and a team that can go all the way. The quarter-final is still going to be a really tough game but an enjoyable footballing occasion and that’s the only thing we are concentrating on. Three games is a long way from a final. I think the only thing in our heads will be how to get over a very impressive Middlesbrough side.”
The significance exceeds a place in the semi-finals for Everton. Ross Barkley admitted last week that Martínez: “has been saying in all the team meetings this season that he wants us to win silverware and he believes we can.”
Qualification for the Champions League is also a stated target from this open Premier League campaign, hence the delirium that greeted Barkley’s 95th-minute goal at Bournemouth on Saturday and Everton’s despair at throwing victory away for a second time when Junior Stanislas equalised in the 98th. The pitch invasion that created the additional time for Stanislas’s second goal could not distract from Everton’s inability to protect a two-goal lead or concentrate for a few moments after Barkley had seemingly delivered three points.
“Of course we have a way to go,” Martínez said. “That’s only normal because we are a very young group. Even the important players are very young.
“The bigger picture is that in three of the last four games we have had a two-goal lead. We need to learn how to manage that situation. We did it well against Aston Villa but didn’t do it well against Sunderland and Bournemouth. We did have incredible character and personality, and to be able to get a two-goal lead in the Premier League three times shows an insight into our strength in this league.
“But it’s a long, long, long way to go from that to being an experienced side who can manage those situations.”
In Romelu Lukaku, who has scored five goals in his past four appearances, Barkley, John Stones and Gerard Deulofeu – aged 22, 21, 21 and 21 respectively – the Everton manager claims to have some of the most valuable young talent in Europe at his disposal.
Few Premier League clubs can equal Everton for giving so many young players so much responsibility. Yet, as reflected in the manager’s frequent mention of “achieve” this season, talk of promise and potential must be fulfilled eventually.
Silverware and a top-four challenge is how to convince a young core they are in the right place.
Everton repelled Chelsea’s advances towards Stones thanks to the financial security provided by the current Premier League broadcasting deal. With Barcelona having a €9m buy-back option on Deulofeu next summer, Lukaku’s agent Mino Raiola touting his client for a move to a Champions League club and Barkley’s game raised to a higher level, Everton’s resolve could be tested on several fronts at the end of the season.
“We would be the richest team in the world,” said Martínez when asked what selling the four would mean for Everton’s finances. He was laughing as he dismissed the prospect, but the manager had a point.
The next TV contract will be worth £122m a year to Everton when it comes into effect in 2016/17, the chief executive Robert Elstone told the club’s recent annual general meeting.
The current deal has been invested in Martínez’s squad and used to reduce the club’s debt but, as the AGM also exposed, a planned new stadium on Walton Hall Park is fanciful at present and new investment is not on the horizon. It is TV money and Martínez’s team that dictates the foreseeable future at Goodison Park.
“Over the last five windows we have been getting stronger by adding numbers, options, quality players and young players who become important,” the manager said recently.
“It comes to a point where we have to achieve and this season is very, very important for that. Breaking up is a word that in football you need to be ahead of, in terms of losing players or having to move them on. If you lose one player then you need to get in two. You need to be able to be strong.
“There are two things that can keep a player happy.
“One is that he’s got stimulation to become better and he can see that he’s growing every day and the other is to be in the best leagues and the best competitions; so you have to get into the Champions League. That’s the top and bottom of it.
“That’s why sometimes you have to set a season where everyone invests into the team and see where that can take you. That’s what we’re doing now.”
